This one just didn’t do it for me. I’m not as familiar with cat shifter stories as with typical wolf shifter stories.

Dr. Evan Kidd is a brilliant researcher specializing in finding cures for mysterious diseases. When he is called upon to find out what is ailing several children in a small village, he is more than happy to help. But the village is inhabited solely by Felis, a cat/human shifter species and most are not fond of humans due to terrible discrimination. A Felis bodyguard is assigned to Evan; a hulking, brooding male with a major chip on his shoulders about humans AND doctors named Rene. 

Rene may not be happy about babysitting Evan but the doctor's earnest and hardworking nature has him more intrigued by the human as he feels he should be. But as the mystery around this illness unfolds, their taboo attraction is the least of the danger surrounding them.

While the premise seems awesome and the world building is interesting, the pacing seemed clunky and there were a lot of places where an idea or concept would be stated two times in two different ways in one paragraph. The redundancy completely threw me out of the book. Maybe this is because I got a galley and there's more editing that needs doing? I hope so...

Overall, this book is just ok. The sex scenes and romance elements were alright even though they felt overused. The best bits to me were the parts concerning the illness itself and even there, I feel more could have been explored. 2.8 out of 5.

I really enjoyed this book despite some issues that it had. Whilst the prologue was interesting to get background on the world the author had built, I would have loved to have seen this woven further into the main story as most of the modern history was done. That being said, I’m not sure how much thought the author put into her world and how the changes she inserted would have affected the world we live in today.

One particular thing that jumped out at me was that she referred to some members of her Felis species as Caucasian, which would be a sub-type of human, and I would have expected the Felis to have their own sub-types. I was more willing to accept that some of the Felis could be different nationalities, such as describing one as being Shoshone, given that there is a huge cultural element rather than genetic tie, though some nationalities may require that genetic link. It would also be interesting to know how these Felis-only cities developed, given their precarious standing in the national government.

The characters themselves were interesting and well developed and showed you more of their personalities as you read on. I really admired Evan’s mediator attitude, without letting himself be walked on. It fit perfectly with Rene’s brash and standoffish mask. Evan’s patience and understanding with Rene helps to build a strong foundation for the relationship and allow it time to breathe until Rene is ready to potentially leave the Felis-only city to continue it.

In a lot of ways, the primary plot was quite hard to decide, as I felt it should have been the investigation into the children’s mysterious illness; however, given how the novel continued past this, I believe the author made Evan and Rene’s relationship the main plot of the novel with other subplots developing that primary plot. Whilst the author did drop suitable hints earlier on in the book about how the ending was going, I feel they could have been woven in a bit better and a few more scenes added in leading up to the climax.

I look forward to any further novels set in this world, seeing how it develops and takes root.

Rating:  3 stars out of 5

Researching and finding cures for illnesses is what Dr. Evan Kidd does best. When he’s asked to help determine what’s making the children of Felis Forest sick, he can’t say no. Evan accepts, and even understands, why Rene has to follow him around town. It’s not every day a human is allowed in the “cat people only” town. But being attracted to someone who doesn’t trust him, much less like him, brings back painful reminders of his past.

Rene has plenty of his own baggage and having to shadow a human—who happens to be a doctor—isn’t helping. Evan challenges all Rene’s preconceived notions about humans and about himself. If they can survive all the obstacles while uncovering the truth, they might just discover they aren’t so different after all.

Velvet Claw by L.J. Hamlin was a  new supernatural thriller for me by a new author and I thought it had a lot going for it.   First off was the premise, a human doctor brought in to find the cure for a mystery disease afflicting the children of a Felidae race.  Combine that with a interspecies romance and mystery and I'm there.

However the execution and actual exposition stopped short of 4 stars.  The world building for example, Hamlin give us a prologue in the human/ Felis history but it doesn't explain why with all the strengths, superior might etc. it doesn't turn out that the Felis come out on top instead of the humans.  More was definitely needed there. Just didn't make sense to go from God to the persecuted and hunted.

I liked the characters here, from Evan to Rene and several of the other people of the cast.  However the author cant seem to decide if the story is told third person, first person or what point of view is to be used.  I can see her wanting to have all the viewpoints out there but the flows just gets disrupted instead of being able to carry the story in a more even natural way.

Finally, when the mystery is solved, the motive is never revealed, a flaw here that bothers me.   It may not bother others, but it certainly did me.  It felt that the story lacked closure, especially since the author then threw in an entirely different mystery altogether that felt unnecessary.

So much promise here and that's why I gave it 3 stars, not because of the actual execution.

Cover art is simplistic.  Not a fan.

I loved the fact that these Felids, while in "human form" we're still part cat. The idea of still having soft fur, etc..was intriguing. Reminded me a bit if Thundercats. The fact that the old beliefs, they we're worshipped like Gods was neat too, and how the fall of those Gods let to their "downfall" as well.
Later to lead to discrimination and unsanctioned lab testing. I can see how these Felids would fear and dislike humans and segregate themselves.

What I didn't so much love about this book was ALL the drama. You have this Doctor who focuses on research and trying to cure people. So much so that he comes to help a fellow doctor try and crack a mysterious illness, purely out of the goodness of his heart, and now all of a sudden it seems everyone wants to kill him. Ok, like 2 different people, or organizations, but both were unrelated. It seems like the second one came out of left field too, it had absolutely nothing to do with the main story. I think it had more to do with a plot to keep the Doctor and his "babysitter" together, but it just seemed a little excessive what the doctor had to do...and he seemed to have taken it all like a champ, with no real after thoughts. I'm sure I'd be in therapy, so it just seemed a bit unrealistic (I know, it's about human cats, but still!)

Other than that,this was am interesting take on shifters and I thought it was good

Evan is a doctor that specializes in solving health mysteries, but when he's called in to investigate an illness sickening cat children he knows he has to tread carefully. Rene, who hates humans, is assigned as his guard, but hating Evan isn't nearly as easy as Rene had thought. Instead, he's distracted by the budding relationship growing between them, which might just get them both killed.

I wanted so badly to like this story. The premise of cat people from Atlantis and the political balance of how they're treated in the modern world was so interesting. Yet, like most of the story, that premise was never given enough detail or depth to properly ground the story. Every single aspect of this book started out as a great idea, but was never actually finished properly.

The best example of this is the relationship between Evan and Rene. It's basically insta-love with very little building attraction between them before they suddenly fall into bed together. The author mentioned the word 'mate' offhand one or two times, but kept dismissing it instead of going into more detail. While it wouldn't have solved the insta-love, it would have provided a reason that they had been instantly attracted and thereby given the relationship a touch more realism. An entire book of almost getting the full depth and explanation left me frustrated and an unhappy with it at the end.

Book – Velvet Claw
Author – L.J. Hamlin
Star rating - ★★☆☆☆
No. of Pages – 171
Cover – Nice!
POV – 3rd person, present tense, dual POV (with one chapter for someone else)
Would I read it again –
Genre – LGBT, Paranormal, Shifter, Supernatural, MM, Romance


** COPY RECEIVED THROUGH NETGALLEY **



Truthfully, I was really looking forward to this. The blurb said all the right things and the cover was a bit manga/comic style, so I thought it would be awesome. I loved the entire concept. However, upon reading, it just didn't work for me. It couldn't come together as a cohesive story, it lacked depth, emotion, and a connection that should have drawn me in. The concept is good and it could have been a brilliant read, but the writing style needs a serious and brutal editor to pull it together and help turn this 'first draft' style idea into something amazing. Because, it could have been. It just wasn't.

The whole cat concept felt like a race war, with humans vs cats being portrayed as similar to black vs white. This is most evident in the Prologue, where it explains the history of the cat people and basically uses all the political and historical struggles that revolved around the segregation and gay protest eras. There was also a few times when the race of someone was overstated, such as when Nanook was introduced as Native American, when Evan mentioned that he and Nanook were of the same tribe. Those things would have been fine on their own, but they were usually paired with a comparison to an overly perfect, attractive white woman. Just as Evan was mentioned as gay with this interesting choice of words:
“She looks adorable. She's a beautiful blonde, with big brown eyes and a perfect body. They might make a great couple, if one of the many things they had in common wasn't liking tall, dark, and handsome men.”
Only, breaking continuity, it later explains that he'd 'not gay' and that he's pansexual, however it takes until 14% to discover this distinction of sexuality. Just like it takes until 48% to find out that Evan is part-Irish American, as well as part Native American. However, despite explaining that Evan was half-Algonquian, while Nanook was full Algonquian, later on it contradicts that statement by claiming that his father “is Native American, like Nanook. Different tribes but same backgrounds.”

When it comes to POV, it's a little mish-mashed. The Prologue begins with a storybook telling history narration that ends far too abruptly and feels like it stopped in the middle of trying to make a point that it never managed to articulate. From then on, the majority of the book is a dual 3rd person, present tense POV between Evan and Rene, with Chapter 1 being the exception, given in Nanook's POV.

There are some slightly ridiculous concepts that aren't really necessary, such as the whole origin of Felis being from Atlantis, and the entire Adam plot that was really only used to give Evan an excuse to be accepted by the Felis Forest, and as a way to out Rene. Neither were necessary. Nor was the whole “They kiss for long enough to fog up the windows”, which I could have taken as teasing or a joke, until Rene literally attempted to clear the fog from the windows.

Stating the unnecessary is also another problem, here. Sentences explaining that the term 'the Elders' doesn't mean someone older but a governing council is unnecessary, as are the mentions of things being said or thought sarcastically. This is part of the way that it feels like a first draft, as I said earlier – too many little things that, when properly edited or beta read, should have been cut out because they have no purpose and offer nothing to the story. Such as the various events that are skimmed over by being explained in a just a few lines, the many Felis couples mentioned by name in passing, who had zero part of the story actually on page, as well as the numerous info dumps that weren't necessary, interesting nor pushed the story forward, like the cat having a crush on its vet. Yet, some events that should have been further explored were completely ignored. A good editor would have spotted these things and had the word count being wasted put to better use.

Honestly, I disliked the writing style so much and noticed so many issues that could have been solved with editing, that I almost DNF'd at 5%. Normally I give a book longer than that, before considering not finishing it, but this was one a struggle to read and I never fell into the story, at any point, to the extent that I could enjoy it and ignore the faults.

While I thought the story and the characters had real promise, there were also some big issues with both. The story mainly suffered through the writing style and lack of editing, but the characters were a problem all on their own. Evan was basically the epitome of every cliché of a gay man ever given. Not only was he called butch at one point, which is a term that should never be used for a man, but there was a huge emphasis on him being effeminate, short, pretty, goody goody, caring, loving his cat. Basically every clichéd 'girly' mannerism or personality quirk, or feature, ever known in a story was placed upon him. Evan was basically the female of the story and that bothered me. He managed to fight against that a little in the bedroom, where he was aggressive and a greedy bottom, but it was too little to offer the character any redemption. On the flip side, Rene was the stereotypical alpha male – tall, moody, tall, rude, arrogant, overly buff, gruff, manly, yet with a lot of baggage and a sorter side. After a while, the combination became a little tiresome and cheesy. Like a paint-by-numbers romance by Mills and Boons standards.

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Overall, with too much sex, too little detail and characterisation, this story left me feeling a bit more Meh than I'd hoped. I'm always willing to give an author more than one shot of impressing me. Sometimes, a single book isn't for me, but I can love another of their books. This is the second time I've read this author and, unfortunately, it's also the second time that their writing hasn't left a good impression upon me.

Sadly, all the previous problems I had with their other book are present here - 3rd person present tense, a plethora of unneeded descriptions clogging up a word count that could have been put to better use elsewhere, such as the lack of description, setting, atmosphere, emotion, and characterisation. There was also, again, a serious need of an editor and beta readers, to spot these issues. Again, it reads like a first draft of a story – a good story, and a good first draft – but it needs to be brought together with some kind of cohesiveness and a more well crafted writing style. At the moment, it reads like bullet point facts and info dumps being dropped into the story at random places, that don't always make sense, and there's a lack of flow that makes the reading feel unnatural.

I have two more books already approved on Netgalley for this author and I will read them, but I have a feeling this won't be an author that works for me, or that I'll be revisiting in the future.

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